The Story of Christmas
1974 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Evelyn Lambart
Genres: animation, experimental, family
Tones: contemplative, mythic, whimsical
Zinc cut-out animation retells the Christmas story without dialogue, using luminous imagery, heraldic trumpets and wildflowers to evoke rebirth.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Lambart strips the Christmas story down to pure image and sound—no dialogue, no sentimentality—which should feel radical but honestly just feels... reverential. The heraldic trumpets and wildflowers are doing exactly what you'd expect them to do.
A masterwork of formal restraint: zinc cut-outs against luminous space, each frame composed like a medieval manuscript, the soundtrack functioning as liturgical counterpoint rather than ornament. Lambart situates animation within the broader lineage of sacred art, and the rigor of her visual grammar proves it.
The choice to animate in zinc cut-outs—that brittleness, that metallic shimmer against the light—transforms what could be sentimental into something tactile and strange; it's the single material decision that makes this mythic rather than cute.